Game over

On Thursday 28th May, two friends and I went to the Game On 2.0 Convention at the Life Science Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne and then went to see the latest Marvel film, The Avenger: Age of Ultron.

Not going to lie but I don't play a lot of games. I mean I have a Nintendo DS and play like 3 games on it but yeah, not a big player.

However, I wanted to go as I was intrigued in what was going to be there and the fact that I haven't been the Life Centre before.

As for the film, I absolutely love the Avengers film series. From Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor, I am such a geek when it comes to these superheroes so was dead excited to see the latest instalment.

So here is our little adventure to the gaming and superhero world...
We shall start off with the Life Centre and a bit about it's exhibits.
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Here we are!

The ticket you purchase includes many things that you can see and do around Life. From a science theatre, a curiosity zone, an experiment section, a planetarium (where they do hosted shows) and the game convention, it will definitely make you feel like a kid again.

During our visit we saw Live Skies', where we learned about the universe and stars/planets. The half an hour show has a host who talked you through the imagery projected around the dome. It was really interesting to watch and learn about outer space, great for any space lovers out there.
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Live Skies

There was also this really cool 4D experience, focusing on the much loved cartoon of SpongeBob Squarepants.
Named 'The Great Jelly Rescue', you sit on roller coaster style seats and there are twists and turns that make your body swing side to side. There also a few surprises for you during SpongeBob, Patrick and Sandy's wild adventure against the evil Plankton.
Note that there is a height limit on this and you do have to wear 3D glasses but it is great fun. Not going to lie, I was laughing my head off during the show.

The Science Theatre was closed when we went but if you check their website then it may be open if you go to the Centre.

However, the main focus for us was Game On 2.0 convention.

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Entrance to the Centre

From retro arcade games to the recent game consoles, there was so many things to see. And the best thing about it was that there was about a hundred (probably more)stations to play games on from 30 years ago to the recent craze.
These included: Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Pokémon, World of Warcraft and many, many, many, many many more!
It was great to see the history of the games and the technological development from way back then to the consoles/games we have now to play.

Here are some of the photographs I took on the day:
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Gaunlet, 1985 game

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Old arcade games

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World of Warcraft graphics

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Dragon Lair(L) and The Sims(R) graphics

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Mario graphics

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Lara Croft statute

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Nintendo game consoles

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Pokémon

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Gotta catch them all Pokémon

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Old gaming devices I think

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One out of many game stations

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Some more game stations

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And again... I told you there was a lot

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A really old but really cool game console

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Zelda game

The exhibition is there until 1st November 2015 so get down there and enjoy the gaming world.

I for one have been super duper excited to go and see the prequel film of 2012 blockbuster The Avengers and I can tell you now that it did not disappoint.

The action, the surprising romance (in which I did NOT see coming at ALL) and of course the banter between Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Steve Rogers (Captain America), it was absolutely amazing.

I won't go into too much detail as I don't want to give away any spoilers in case you want to go and see it but it basically follows the superheroes battling the supposedly peacekeeping artificial intelligence program Ultron that Stark created. As you can guess, the program isn't as peaceful as expected and things go very, very wrong. But will the team work together and save the world or crash and burn?

The usual superhero gang consisting of Thor (Hemsworth), Captain America (Evans), Iron Man (Downey Jr), Black Widow (Johansson), Hulk (Ruffalo) and Hawkeye (Renner) are seen with the addition of new heroes in the form of the Maximoff twins Quicksilver (Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) as well as a few familiar faces/voices.

The film's plot and the effects were second to none. For example the way they made Quicksilver's super speed was great (that is his power) as well as the character development of Hawkeye (in which I didn't see coming as well). I could not recommend that you go and see this film enough, it just makes you want the next film in the series now. Roll on the next film I say!

Well there you have it. It has been a long one but it was such an action packed adventure that day!

The long day was worth it just for that pretty sunset on the
way home.

Have you been to the Game On 2.0 convention, did you enjoy it? Or have you recently seen Age of Ultron, did it live up to your expectations?